Queens of the Castle

Negril Travel Blog

After a beautiful afternoon at the Coyaba Resort, we found a driver to take us to Negril and arrived at the Blue Cave Castle just after the sun had set. It took a bit longer than normal since they had had some recent heavy rains and the roads had enough standing water too deep to drive through which caused detours in some places and delays in many others.

Once we explored the grounds and decided on different accommodations than originally planned (we were going to share the penthouse but it wasn't as big as expected so I got my own (larger) room), it was time to eat since it was already after 6:00 and our last meal was breakfast around 10:00. At the advice of hotel staff, we walked down the road to a place called 'Choices'.

Blue Cave Castle grounds

There were many places on our little stretch of road but we thought we'd try there first. However, before we even made it the hundred yards to the restaurant, we'd already met a handful of locals enticing us to either stop at their establishment or look at their wares at their streetside stands. One man insisted on making my friend a bracelet as a 'present' despite my warnings that we weren't buying anything right now. After a few disruptions we had to firmly and politely decline further delay by explaining how hungry we were. Finally we made our way to Choices and sat down in the patio dining area. They had a nice menu selection with plenty of authentic Jamaican fare and seafood options. My friend had curried lobster and I had the garlic lobster.

There were several smaller courses preceding the meal such as soup and salad and it was all very good and reasonably priced even if higher than the average for the area.

After eating, we sauntered back down the road and halfway back to our hotel, a wiry, energetic figure quickly approaches us from across the road. Before you know it, a skinny man with dreadlocks is shoving a flower in each of our hands and greeting us with 'hey lovely ladies' or something to that effect. We both were feeling our first official 'hustle' coming on. He asked us the usual repertoire of questions like "is it your first time?" and things of that nature. Instead of feeling like we were being hustled, we decided to use the opportunity to put our new friend in the position of 'local guide'.

Steps down to the cave

We asked him where to get saltfish & ackee in the morning, where to get jerk chicken, where the live music was and what other entertainment we could find in the area. He was very helpful and gave us a quick tour of the neighborhood; walking with us and pointing out each location for our food requests. After our mini-tour, we HAD to go to the local convenience store to stock up on bug spray because already the mosquitoes were having a feast on us. Our new friend asked if we could help him 'get a juice' and I offered to buy him whatever juice he wanted in the store while we were there. He declined saying he'd just prefer the change (of course). We came out and handed him our change which didn't amount to much but he was now happy. I said, "Juice huh?" and he answered "yeah" and wandered quickly off down the road. We headed back to our hotel and lounged around outdoors after spraying ourselves. After a while, I retired to my room to get rested for another exciting day.